


Feels Like Falling

by thilesluna



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Feels, Episode Related, Introspection, M/M, Wolf's Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:12:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thilesluna/pseuds/thilesluna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek will never understand Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feels Like Falling

Derek remembers a time when he felt his heart racing and heard his blood pounding in his ears right before he sent what could be his final pitch over the plate. He can still feel the sun shining down on his face as he looks to the stands to see his family, little sister wriggling with excitement in his mother's lap and his father beaming down at him, nodding once. And it's that kind of nod that's not just a nod. It's a signal of how proud he is and how much he loves his son no matter what. Derek's father was the first one he ever played catch with, who taught him how to hold a bat. Peter had tried so hard to get Derek to play basketball, but that was always Laura's sport.

But Derek still remembers that swoop in his gut and the spike in his heart rate at the look from his father and he knows that whichever way the pitch goes, he gets to go home like a champion.

Derek's got no one to be proud of him anymore though. No one to tell him he's doing fine or to show him where he's making mistakes and tell him how to fix them. What he's got is a teenage werewolf, an Alpha on the loose, a gang of hunters on his tail, and a Stiles.

Stiles makes no sense. He's a ball of lanky arms and legs that doesn't know when to shut up and when to get the hell out of the way. He flails around and generally pisses Derek off to no end.

He listens when Stiles rambles at his dad about the lacrosse game and hears the teen's heart jump when his dad tells him how proud he is. He thinks that Stiles must get in trouble a lot and that with his dad working as much as he does, these father-son moments are few and far between.

The door shuts and Derek almost feels bad for shoving the boy against it when he sees the set of his shoulders, how they're lighter than before but he does it anyway because he can't afford not to and because to not would be to recognize this thing that’s growing.

And now, outside the hospital, on the phone with Scott, Derek doesn't understand Stiles at all. He can smell the fear and hear the increase in the kid's heart rate when he tells Scott to tell his dad that he'll be at the game. Stiles is lying, just like he has been for weeks. He knows it, Derek knows it, hell—even Scott probably knows it and he has the observational skills of a fucking gerbil.

And this is what Derek doesn't—or maybe it's can't—understand: what neurons are firing wrong in Stiles's stupid head make it so easy for him to sacrifice the things he wants to help Scott—to help Derek? To step up and help people who’ve fucked him over by not listening to him and blundering through this mess like idiots? What makes this kid so god damned okay with giving up what obviously means so much to him?

It's driving Derek insane. He wants to grab Stiles by the shoulders and shake him and scream at him for being so fucking selfless because who the fuck does that? Scott might be worth it, but Derek sure as hell isn’t. He’s done nothing to earn his place in Stiles good graces.

The only people he's ever trusted were his family and Ka—the psychopath that killed them. But now he feels the draw to this dumbshit teenager with no filter and who doesn't think twice about dropping one of the things he wants most on top of his father's respect and—

It's fucking terrifying.

"You're not gonna make it," he hears himself saying.

Stiles sighs, resigned. "I know,” he says; and Derek can feel himself falling.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a gif-set on Tumblr. You know the one, from Wolf's Bane where Derek looks at Stiles like he doesn't get him and also is possibly enamored by him :))))


End file.
